CommentsGUEST COMMENTARY--Apologies to those of you understandably all Trumped out. But Holy Mother of God, this shall not pass. At a snarling, jabbing, invective-laden "rally" in Louisville, a mob of Trump supporters - following The Donald's vicious lead - jostled and heaved a black college student out of the building, calling her "nigger" and "cunt" as she passed.
Video of the incident shows several men, backed by seething women reminiscent of those who assailed the Little Rock 9, furiously shoving University of Louisville student Shiya Nwanguma after Trump barked from the stage, "Get them OUTTA here!"
Nwanguma was one of several peaceful black protesters; another said the red-faced crowd repeatedly cursed at her and fellow protesters, chanting, "You're scum, your time will come. You're scum, your time will come."
Among those leading the brave charge was Matthew Heimbach, a beefy young white supremacist and leader of the so-called Traditionalist Worker Party - whose incomprehensible slogan "Faith, Family and Folks" is accompanied by a logo that looks just like the Nazis' - also known as "The Little Führer.”
In a blog post on the fascist Traditionalist Youth Network, Heimbach acknowledged "yours truly started helping the crowd drive out one of the women who had been pushing, shoving, barking, and screaming at attendees...White Americans are getting fed up and they’re learning that they must either push back or be pushed down."
Some observers are still managing to find a sliver of humor, albeit darkly savage, about Drumpf.
(Thank you, John Oliver). After New Jersey's hapless Chris Christie spent the duration of Drumpf's victory speech onstage with a blank, panicked, hostage-like expression that said either "Wait-did-I-leave-the-stove-on?" or "Agh-get-me-outta-here," Twitter enthusiasts started a #FreeChrisChristie campaign. Others have undertaken a #NeverTrump hashtag, and there are a multitude of cartoons attempting to find some bitter bemusement in Trump's evident fondness for the KKK.
Still, it's getting harder to laugh. Or to deny that today's shoving incident, the whiff of mob violence that attends Trump events, and the blatant, in-your-face, let's-skip-the-codewords racism his campaign increasingly summons are all what Shaun King calls the "natural progression" of a GOP that has been tilting so right for so long they've abandoned any pretext of humanity and simply fallen off the moral map.
In his bigotry, some argue, Drumpf has even given us reason to thank him for becoming "a shining beacon attracting the pestilent flies of American racism." Thus has he "awakened the country from its post-racial dream (and) showed us more clearly the world we live in," where, deep down, "God-soaked white people are just better than everyone else."
Make no mistake: This is the world Drumpf, and the GOP, have wrought. Here's one thing to do about it.
(Abby Zimet writes for Common Dreams … where this perspective was first posted.)
-cw
